Short Looking Back

"When she was a girl, she expected the world."
-Paradise, Coldplay.

In comparison to the past few years, 2011 was the calm after the storm. It was the year I learnt to stop panicking (and stop blogging apparently).

What me panic for right?

It's like this- there's always an alternative. There's always another way. If you lose your job, get a new one. If your boyfriend dumps you, take a sabbatical. If your car doesn't work then take a bus and quit quit feeling sorry for yourself because you expend so much time worrying about things that don't even matter in a few months.

So what did I gain this year?
Lines under my eyes that won't go away. Sigh.
Perspective.
A new appreciation for the comforts of home ( I think I must've locked myself out about four times this year including today).
An iPad. A kindle. I was debating between them at the beginning of the year and then somehow I ended up with both? It's like the magic fairy in the sky is trying to turn me away from paper.
An allergy to nightclubs. I can't do them anymore.
New friends. Old friends. Of which I am much grateful to have always. Also lucky for them, they are no longer graced with drunken midnight phone calls.



and last but not least, a big goofy goofball.

They say that 28 is statistically the best year of people's lives. I didn't bungee jump off a cliff or perform any death defying acts (that I can think of) but you know what? I'm really happy with it. You really can't ask for more than that.

Drive Through Breakfast

Some prep history:
I drive past ND's house everyday on the way to work and if he's at home, we'll wave at each other. It's goofy I know. (Sometimes I wonder if we were to split up, if I would have to drive an alternative route to work, the problem is that there is no alternative route that doesn't take five hours. Anyway.)

And more prep history: I always eat two sandwiches in the car on the way to work.

So this morning, for some fuzzy reason- I left my sandwiches on the counter and didn't remember that I was missing something until ten minutes later. Fk! fk! And thus I message him with an appropriate morning epistle of 'I left my breakfast at home! fk! fk!' (I'm a morning person, can you tell?)

I didn't actually think he'd be awake and so I was surprised when he replied 'Stop by. I have breakfast on the go here.'

Ten minutes later, with tactical CIA co-ordination and the help of a bucketload of traffic, he managed to open my cardoor, propel a lunchbox of poached egg and toast into the passenger seat, wave and dash off Flash-style.

And to make my heart go a little bit smushy- it was raining as well.


When I got to work (a million hours later) I opened up the box to see this.



M: There's a bite missing from my toast!
N: Yes cos it WAS my breakfast!

Wherein I rant about Honkie matrons

Just a slight disclaimer beforehand, I'm not disparaging all honkie ladies, just that certain type- those 40plus matrons that carry their LVs like they're hotshit even though their wealth comes from marrying a rich husband and not from any actual any hard work ethic. Yeah, you know which ones I'm talking about- don't pretend like you don't!

So I'm with my cousin Matty for the soft opening of my uncle's cafe and this lady (we'll call her Queen Money for fun) swans in and my uncle comes up to greet her. This is how the conversation actually went and how I tried to keep my eyes from rolling out of my head with sheer force of will

U: Oh hello! Thank you for coming! I appreciate it so much
QM: Oh no problem, I always do what I say.
U: So this must be your lovely daughter.
QM: Yes, I just had to bring her. She has a great taste for eating. She eats wherever she travels, so in Japan, in Europe, in America. We're always looking for fine dining all over the world. Ha! ha! ha!

At this my face contorted into some sort of spasm where it just folded in half. Matty just looks at me and says: I concur.

So we're at different tables and I ignore their conversation but bits of it float towards me like twenty year old air freshener and I hear bitching about shopping. Life is hard.

Nighttime falls and my uncle comes outside to play with the light switches and he adjusts it to give it this amazing effect of being bright yet romantic. He calls over to me and asks," how is it?"
And I respond "Super! It looks great!"

He calls over to her table and asks what she thinks as well.

QM: Well it's fine for Asians, but a bit bright for caucasians because they like it dimmer for their fine dining. But we fine dine so much that we're used to their lighting.

I think I almost spat my orange juice.

Here in a 'normal' situation, an ordinary person would say either a) it's too bright! b) it's a bit dim or c)it's great, thank you. But she is so determined to flaunt her wealth and make her status known to everyone, that a base question that can't be answered without a graceless aside.

Let's play an example game of how I see conversation with her going
M: Oh it's sunny outside
QM: It is isn't it! I must take my Hermes umbrella out to protect my SKII protected skin.

M: How do you find these carrots?
QM: They are nice, but they are nothing like the ones I had last week. They were 700 a carrot and boiled by Belgian monks. Ha! Ha! ha!

Seriously, I hate people like that. It just wouldn't hurt them to show a little grace and humility (and for some reason in Hong Kong, these types of matrons multiply like seagulls on a damn chip. I can't explain it, I have no idea where they come from. They're a mutant phenomenon.)

Divorce as dinner conversation

So the six of us were sitting around the dinner table when for some reason or another it occurred to us that we all had divorced parents. I think we were all a bit gobsmacked by those odds and then we mentioned the mutual friends who were running late and they turned out to be children of divorce as well. Eight out of eight.

When I was a child, no-one had divorced parents. Divorced parents were an anomaly. I think about how ashamed my Dad and Stepmum were of being seen as a blended family and how I was ever the only child on the airplane flying interstate between parents.

Now everyone has a blended family and flights are filled with children who got the short end of the stick in custody battles.

Some of us told stories about the traumatic things their parents had done to their families before and during the divorce. Some of us stayed quiet not wanting to share things which were too personal even for close friends.

I think though that we'll all in our way, be more self aware when we choose our partners to not make the mistakes of our parents.

Coconat spoke up at some point to reassure us ".. it doesn't matter, because despite everything we all turned out okay."

No-one agreed with her though and the table went silent.

In a canoe

Ehm. As much as I love my blackberry and it takes a good photo, I really miss my pink point and shoot. I'm doing so many amazing things lately and I'm only documenting it with my swiss cheese brain (which is overtaken with such useless factoids as did you know the Easter Island statues used to wear hats?) so it'll only be a matter of time before I completely forget that I did anything at all.


So this weekend I went to see Strassman (who doesn't love a bear puppet right?) and
I went kayaking. Yeah me, kayaking. Did you fall down in a dead faint yet? I thought I really haven't pushed the limits of my comfort zone this year so I thought I might go and do something that I wouldn't normally do.

I'd build some emotional growth and have an adventure at the same time. See, and this is where the photos would have come in handy to prove that I did it. Whoops.

In any case, I did it and we didn't run into any speeding boats, were not attacked by any bullsharks (I probably wouldn't have put my hands so flippantly in the water if there were any around) and didn't overturn the canoe at any point (ND did fall in when he was getting out, but that isn't counted I think) but most of all we had fun.

See? I can have outdoorsy and healthy fun! Who woulda thunk.

Older?

I always look sleepy in photos lately. They say that as you get older, your nose gets bigger. They never said that your eyes shrink to go along with it. (There's an easy squinty Asian joke in there somewhere but I'm bigger than that and I won't do it!)

Lessons in Love

She: (after I had done her a favour) I love you!
Me: Haha.. no I love you.
She: Thank you!
Me: Did you say thank you? What does that mean. When someone says I love you- you say I love you too.
She: Oh, I didn't know that.
Me: .. What do you say when your husband says 'wo ai ni'??
She: He's never said it to me.... Stop making me face reality!

(Edited) Sigh

I seriously want to talk about how I feel but I think I'm going to get in trouble for salacious gossiping. So, let's just say this: If your girlfriend has only kissed you once all year? She doesn't really like you all that much. Also, get yourself a new one that likes you.

Kinda saved a dog

The above image is not mine- I pulled it off someone else's images. It's an approximation of what the dog looked like. Actually in all honesty they could probably be identical.**

Let's be frank, I am not a cat person and lucky for me (and unlucky for all the cats in the world because I am a super duper owner) ND doesn't love them either. So I live in a relatively cat-free world. I am without a doubt a dog person. Dogs love me and we generally get along because they don't try to claw out the backs of my thighs.

In a moment of frustration with my company a couple of weeks before, I exclaimed angrily to ND "Fuck this! fuckitall! I'm going to quit and become a dogwalker!"

Of course God heard me and went 'heeheehee.. she thinks she wants to be a dogwalker. I have a plan to make her stay in marketing forever!'

And ever since then I have been saving dogs all over my neighbourhood. That is, rather hilariously you'll find me chasing Ted from downstairs up hills or rounding up poodles back into their gates. Here she comes to save the day.

Today however, I thought I would spend a quiet afternoon in the park near mine.

You know the one. And I was on the phone with St Mary (because I am one of those annoying loud people) and there was no-one around except an old lady and her two dogs. A staffy and Bobby .. a rat terrier? Well, they were in line of my vision and then Bobby was not. Bobby fell straight into the water with a plop. If you can see the photo, it's kind of a deep drop down.

I was baffled. Dogs are dumb at the best of times, how the heck did that happen?

The lady then started calling Bobby and was trying to coax him to swim to safety. Of course, safety was about 100m to the left and Bobby was a small dog. She gave up and hopped down there to save him.

Lucky for her and Bobby- that it was low tide and she was standing on a little shelf. That little shelf is not usually there. She propped Bobby back onto land and by then I was like 'lady, do you need help??' She looked sprightly but she wasn't young. I was a little bit worried about how she thought she was going to climb back up.

That crazy dog was running around in circles and weaving everywhere and she said breathlessly 'Please get him! He's blind!'

And Bobby was weaving right back to the edge of the harbour so I dived for him before he reached and he got frightened and headed the other way, before turning back and almost weaving back into the damn ocean.

Have you ever tried to stop a miniscule (and wet) rat terrier from falling off a ledge? It's kinda hard. Everytime I almost had him by the collar 'here Bobby, here boy, good boy..' he'd duck and go careening too damn close for my liking. That dog had a massive death wish.

Finally (finally!) I had him tightened to a lead and he was frightened (He probably thought the dogcatcher was chasing him around. The staffy was just sitting there enjoying the show.) and I was puffed. I peered over the ledge- 'Are you okay?'
She made her way to dry land and she pulled herself up. I gotta give her props for that.

She thanked me profusely and I made my way back to my handbag/mobile phone/ipad which were rather miraculously still there (Thank jeebus for white middle class suburbs where they couldn't be bothered to steal these kinds of things because they already have them in spades)

At any rate, the lesson for today kiddos, is don't take your blind dog off leash near water. Well you can, if your dog is massive like a saint bernard and doesn't have any chance of falling in. Don't do it if the dog is smaller than your backpack.

--

Only way down

It's just that I don't feel like writing and my point and shoots are all broken so basically I feel like I have nothing to say.

And when I come in here and realise that I've written half of what I did last year, I feel super duper guilty.

(I guess if you wanted to know why I'm not around so much anymore.)

Through the grapevine, I heard that someone I used to be friends with is in a mental hospital after trying to kill himself. When I was first told this, I didn't believe it.

But then there are people who can't stand the noose of normal life. Who look for the maddest and most flamboyant ways to self-destruct. Those who hold tragedy like badges of honour. Who think the bravest way is to die down and out.

I believed it after I thought about it.

There's no place like home hey?

Old love letters

I'm cleaning out my computer and I came across a really old love letter.

It made my heart go whap-whap-whrrrrfrr?

I have no idea what to do with it, am I supposed to save it?

I thought I got rid of everything in the great purge of 09.

Picnicky

Where have you been?!

Mmm.. well this is going to be a rubbish blog post because I have to get off any minute now and resume working myself to death (freelancing is awesome!) and I have no pictures to show you that I still have a life because I used ND's camera .. and that camera is floating somewhere now in Glebe.

So.

And last week was truly an FML type of week in which (descending order):

*My brakelight was kicked in on Monday
*On Wednesday I got into a discussion with my co-worker which resulted in me bursting into tears and then angrily flinging rocks everywhere (I realise that makes me sound like I've lost my marbles)
*And then to cap off Thursday, I got into a fight with my neighbour who proceeded to try and run me over (!) which ended up with the police being called.

Thus on Saturday, my hairdresser gave me a onceover with his observant eye and asked me if I was feeling a little tired... "you look a little worn out." - I feel like I want to sleep for the next twelve years, preferably in an apartment where I don't have to pay rent.

And somewhere in there I had a failed double date, time-out at the oxygen bar, a major family dinner, an anniversary and an interview. That move to the farm is starting to look realllllly good.

(I swear the next post will be a happy post. And that this week is going to be better. It has to be better. )

Tears redux

I haven't cried, really cried, for months and then one thing triggers you and you can't stop. The sheets are soaked and your head is dizzy from it and you realize you're not crying just for that one thing but for all the other little injustices and troubles and everything that you just can't help.

Self Destruct

He looks at me and says "don't judge me."
I just sigh and I am only half joking when I say,"I am judging the holy shit out of you right now"

He looks miserable and the guilt is eating him alive. He shouldn't be having an affair with his secretary and he's doing it in such a way that at any moment his girlfriend and the boyfriend are going to find out.

I can see and he can see that he's going to crush his girlfriends heart. He's walking towards inevitability and it's damn hard to watch.

I wind the window down, "God, why can't you just keep it in your pants?"
"I know I'm doing the wrong thing." Though neither of us can explain why he's doing it.

Sofa

"And my eyes are closed
And I’m way too tired
Hoody still smells of the beach bonfire
On the sofa, where we lay
I wanna stay inside all day
And it’s cold outside, again

And we’re both so high
We could fly to Berlin, Tokyo or Jamaica
We can go where you want
Say the word and I’ll take ya
But I’d rather stay on the sofa
On the sofa, with you"
- Sofa, Ed Sheeran

Bucket List: 1 down, 13 to go

You know how some people are born performers and just naturally like being on stage? I am not one of those people.

So just for kicks, I thought I'd put perform on stage on my bucket list and maybe I'd enjoy it. I guess I thought that eventually when I did it, talent would come pouring out of me like a slot machine jackpot, well that's what I was hoping. Yes, I know -come back down to earth, little one.

Anyway I dropped it on my things to do and I forgot about it. Until it occurred to me some time last week that I'm approaching thirty and I have done close to nothing on it. It was time to get a move on.

So the challenge was: perform live on stage and clearly there were certain limitations to go with it. Like as in, I'm not going to squeeze myself into a box vis a vis Cirque Du Soleil, I don't have time to audition for the community centre performance of Les Mis and I honestly have no ambitions to be a rockstar [if I became once incidentally that would be okay though]

So the easiest way to do this would be of course to participate in a live karaoke session. Instant audience, no rehearsals and pants-peeing terror. In my dreams, I could see people booing me off stage, I would become the Rebecca Black of Chinatown, shunned and reviled for my inability to keep pitch.

I recruited a whole bunch of my closest friends so they could fight off the tomato-throwing contingent and the scene was set.

Location: Covent Garden. Notorious live karaoke joint in Sydney. Full of space cadet-y bartenders and regulars with bad haircuts and big performances.

I had never been to Covent Garden and for some reason I was expecting it to be much bigger and full of talentless mumbos like me. Of course, I was wrong and it was not full of talentless mumbos. I started having my first panic attack at some lady's rendition of Rolling in the Deep and then I had my second one when an office worker belted out the operatic version of The Prayer complete with high notes. Uh huh, the italian version of The Prayer as originated from Andrea Bocelli. That one.

So I started tippling at the wine bottle (it's a wonder I didn't slug from the whole thing!) and the more nervous I got and the longer I waited, the more the room started to fill up with people. I had thought that Covent Garden would be quiet and uncrowded. Wrong Assumption no 2. Lady, next time do your research!

If I had been by myself I would have started edging quietly towards the door but as it so happens, eight or nine of my nearest and dearest were there and I wasn't going anywhere. Erk. ND was giving me a Rocky Balboa massage while the others were giving me words of encouragement and promising not to boo me (aww, you guys!).

So I mounted the stage and I saw a million pairs of eyes looking at me expectantly and as I made my dedication, I was drowned out by cheers. The cheers of my friends. Surveying the room, I could see Egg and St Mary off to the frontside videoing, and everyone else at the table making woo noises. ND had stood on his chair so I could see him the most clearly and he was beaming at me.

I closed my eyes and launched into a rendition of 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' (oh come on, what did you expect?) and it wasn't bad, it wasn't great and I certainly am never going to be the next .. Britney but it was kinda fun and when I finished the DJ whispered to me 'that was okay.' As I got off the stage, I was rushed by everyone for hugs and love and everyone told me how proud they were of me. And I was dazed, really dazed and all I could think of was 'fuck, how lucky am I? I really have the best friends in the world.'

Sometimes that kind of outpouring is a revelation in itself.

On a friendship implosion

I wasn't going to write about this because briefs and census forms stand in my way, but I guess I kind of want to document this because I'm learning a lesson from this- I'm not sure what kind of lesson exactly.

When she and I met, we were both extremely young pups. She was 19 and I was 21 and I guess we were kind of mismatched friends from the start. She was extremely glamorous and I was.. how I am now, a bit bumbling and goofy. If I look back in hindsight, we really didn't have that much in common other than that we were both isolated in what was a very very crap workplace.

And I think we were both disliked for completely diametrical reasons, she was maximumly confident and people resented her for it while I was the deer-in-the-headlights and someone had apparently pinned a kick me sign to my forehead, whatever it was, we bypassed that place and we've been friends ever since.

Through break-ups , career changes, birthdays and early twenties angst. We orbited around each other.

Until this year. This year it's been incredibly strained and I can't pinpoint why. Well I guess I can give a whole host of varied reasons from busy lifestyles to basic geography to just plain ol' growing apart but none of those things were the main reason or maybe they just combined to smush our relationship into the ground. I have no idea.

Two weeks ago, the entire friendship fell apart so fast that I gave myself whiplash watching it crumble. And the thing is? I don't know why [or how I contributed ] into making it happen. That's right- I have no idea what brought us together in the first place, what killed it or how I'm supposed to fix it. Essentially, this is a post full of giant question marks. Someone please buy me a clue.

And then I think if that's the end, it cannot have been that strong in the first place. That if no-one reaches out to the other, then no-one thinks that its worth saving. And ladies and gentlemen, thats one damn sad place to be.

I don't know about her, and I speak only for myself here, when I say, I am exhausted. I am really really tired of navigating relationships and when I think about all that time I spent in my misguided youth chasing around 'friends' who didn't want to actually be friends with me (not that I"m saying that she's one of those) but I want to slap my past self up in the head. Yeah, that's right past self, why the hell were you so damn needy?

I think I don't want to ruminate on this anymore after this because it just makes me too upset and there's no answer, I just keep going around in laps arriving at no conclusion at all.

Pantsless Cera and Schwartzman

Who knows why they're pantsless? It amuses me.

A different way of reminding yourself

"Carve your name into my arm.
Instead of stressed, I lie here charmed."
-Every You, Every Me, Placebo

He* has the words Love carved in several places on his arm, back when he and his-ex girlfriend used to be passionately madly in love with each other. You can't see it unless he rolls up his sleeve and twists his arm into a certain way in the light.

I gaped at it "Are you fucking crazy? That's crazy. Holy Crap." (Do you remember when I used to be open-minded? It feels like a loooong time ago)

He laughs, "yeah, it's crazy. It reminds me everyday that that kind of love? It fades."

*He prefers to stay anonymous. If you'd like to find out who this is- I suggest you start rolling up the sleeves of all my male acquaintances. I'm just kidding. Don't do that.

Short Pieces

Short pieces because I don't want to think so hard today.




--

Mystic Meg is reading ND's palm.
MM: You're going to have four kids.
ND slowly swivels to look at me.
Me: Not with me you're not.

--

Jamais vu: the opposite to deja vu. you've done this before but for some reason you have the sensation that you haven't.

--

"All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun"
- Pumped Up Kicks, Foster the People

It's rather highly disturbing that commercial radio is releasing this song so close to the aftermath of the Oslo massacre. On the other hand, it's a ridiculously fun song to dance around to and quite possibly no-one is paying attention to the lyrics. I mean it sounds like 'run faster than my brother' rather than 'run faster than my bullet'.

--

Dyl: They do the Greek thing,
Me: What are you talking about. What Greek thing?
Dyl: ............ what did the Greeks invent?
MD: Wine?
Me: Math?
Dyl: Rear Entry.
Me: ...............................now you're just making stuff up!

--
--

And he said: My boyfriend works in a catholic school and he can't tell them he's gay. They might suspect, but there's this don't ask, don't tell policy happening.

I said: What does he do there? (and why is this still an issue in Sydney 2011?!)

He said: He's a religion teacher. A theologian.

The irony. It's killing me oh so hard.

--

Oh.. they've decapitated her... I don't know how to feel about that. I wish for those brushes though.

Bad Habit.

I have two bad habits:

The first is that I somehow chronically always get the bathroom floor wet after I shower. It doesnt matter how dry I am, I manage to leave puddles everywhere. I get that it must be irritating for lovers/families/flatmates.

The second is that I don't do well in phone fighting and so if you exasperate me enough, I will hang up on you without fail. There'll be a brief tense silence on the phone and then you'll just hear a click. You may think that my hang-up is silent but deadly but often its just because if I don't hang up on you, I'm going to say something that I'm never going to be able to take back. Don't worry, you'll have enraged me to the point that after I throw my mobile across the room, I'm still going to head outside and kick something small and fluffy.

I recall that SB used to call back to yell at me for hanging up on him and I would just pitch the phone into the freezer for a good three hours. My phone has been remarkably ice-free for the past few years.

At any rate, ND and I had our first fight tonight, and it wasn't anything too serious but it was enough for my finger to reach for that little red button and end it pretty damn abruptly [don't tell me to grow up! what the hell!] and so now I'm sitting here mulling over history repeating and my inability to break old bad habits.

And the thing is right, that that is the way that I fight. I slam doors and I hang up phones and I wave my arms around like a windmill. I'm a ridiculously melodramatic drama queen. And I am who I am. What remains to be seen is if he will be okay with that.

Mugs 2#

LA Noire. Ever so slightly boring.

• Team Bondi took seven years to make it- with over 100 creatives involved.
  
  
• They've mapped out the entire 1940's city of LA including hotels, landmarks, train tracks, suburbs..
  
  
• The graphics are without a doubt phenomenal (and you can run people over! It's awesome!)
  
  
• IGN has given it a rating of 8.5
  
  
• I've spent something like a year waiting for it to come out
  
  
• Plus paid 90 big ones to own a copy (at a time when I am not rolling around in disposable money)

And still the entire thing puts me to sleep faster than dropping a 40kg mallet on my head in a doorway. At first, I was afraid to say it out loud-because I had waited so long and paid so much money and it was clear that so much effort had been put into it - that voicing it would be kind of a sacrilege.

But here I said it first: LA Noire is boring. It's boring. It bores me to tears. Pretty graphics do not a game make. You actually have to have gameplay that involves more than walking around and waiting til the controller shakes. Hell even my beloved Mario steps on Goombas from time to time in the 64 version.

And yet I have to finish it. I have to finish it because I already spent 8 hours of my life trying not to doze through it [and according to reviewers.. it's 30 hours of gameplay so I only have.. 22 hours of not-dozing left] and I just keep hoping it gets better. Maybe something interesting will happen. Maybe some zombies will show up and eat Cole Phelps. That might be too much to ask.

Whatever. I'm going to get through to the end and then sell it on eBay lauding it as the best game I ever played. And then take the money I get from that and spend it on shoes.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you haven't bought it and you're interested, I have a very high boredom threshold. You would probably misunderestimate the time I spend playing spider solitaire in my spare time. So if I think it's boring and you still decide to go ahead, don't say I didn't give you fair warning.

It really is a spectacular looking game though.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm going on about, don't worry it's nothing- Here's a picture of cakepops.

Poison Pens

And I'm clickclacking away when my phone beeps and I stop working for a minute to see that it's a facebook message.

I was expecting.. a haiku, a question, an events notice.. what I wasn't expecting was a poison pen letter.

A ten paragraph epistle on why this person didn't want to be my friend and I was to put it short, a little stunned. [I'm still a little stunned actually, it might explain why I'm typing in such stunted sentences]

The reasons being:

She was uncomfortable around me. (And couldn't wait til I wasn't around)
I sucked all the fun out of the room?!
I'm too negative to be friends with and that being friends with me is such an effort
She feels sorry for me
No-one wants to hang around me someone like me

This is a girl who I haven't seen for months. So if we had a beef, I didn't know it.

I could tell by the way she wrote- that she was looking for a fight. That she wanted me to slang back at her. That if I just returned that volley, I would be giving her permission to be out and out vicious towards one another, that what she wanted was a leeway to tear each other to bits.

And then I looked at my work, my 1000 word article on car radiators -which I know I have to finish tonight and I just felt tired. We are not in high school, I am not in high school and this is not the way that I deal with things when I am twenty eight. I don't facebook message fight- And truly I think that way of behaving is just.. pathetic.

But maybe if there was one thing she was right about, it's that there are some things in life that we just don't need. Right on? Right on.

So I clicked delete. All gone.

Fortune 2#

Sunshine on a winters day, dumplings, good friends, hand in hand with the amazing ND. So who me worry?
Shut up stupid fortune cookie.

A pink room.

My perfect house has a library with bookcase with several ladders that move back and forward on wheels. It has high ceilings and wooden floors and lots of natural lighting. I have an open courtyard and in this courtyard, in the middle is a large oak tree which has a little rope swing, which I can sit upon on summer days.

But sometimes (and this will never happen) I dream of a pink room with a big old Hello Kitty mirror with chequered walls. Uninterrupted and unfettered girliness- you could never be miserable in a room like that.

We all need a little change

I haven't seen Speedy in three months

Speedy: What happened to you? Where have you been? Why didn't you call me?
Me: I thought you were mad at me ................
Speedy: Wait, what. So if I didn't call you, you wouldn't have called me?
Me: You were mad!
Speedy: No, I wasn't! What happened to your hair?!
Me: Oh, you just noticed it? It's a little darker than before.
Speedy: It looks nice. You look like a grown up.
Me: Oh, thank you.
Speedy: Let's go for a coffee and cake.
Me: Cool!
Speedy: (horrified) I was just kidding. Coffee? Cake? It's a Friday! What happened to you?? What happened to my party girl friend? I miss her.
Me: .................... I got old. Real old.
Speedy: Do you blog anymore?
Me:...... Not much.
Speedy: You better blog about this. About how you almost abandoned your Mexican friend and about how you changed.
Me: Were you really kidding about coffee and cake?

Ba-dump

And when he thought I wasn't looking, he starts to dance to Edge of Glory, I spotted him on the outer edges of my mirror and it was probably the cutest thing I have ever seen.

I straightened up, turned around and grinned at him. "Baby, what are you doing?"

He stops mid-motion "Uh. Nothing! I have an itch. Itchy back."

"I believe that you were just dancing to Lady Gaga"

He starts to blush and laugh. "No, I wasn't. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go be manly and play LA Noire."

I corner him "yeah you were! Do it again!"

And in that moment, it occurs to me that I love him. He's so charming and goofy and he makes my heart go ba-dump at unexpected moments. And help me God, he secretly dances to Top 40.

I don't know quite how to say this to him, those three words that I throw around so easily with other people.

He gives me an aggrieved look before throwing himself facedown on the bed: You're still grinning at me. It never happened.

And I can't say it still, my throat closes over and so I substitute instead with"I think you're the greatest".

Too Much

"Do you like your new job?"
"Meh. It's okay. It's probably temporary."
"What? You just started."
"Well it's not what I want to do."
"..... What exactly do you want?"
"I want to love the job"
"You ask for too much lady."

Goodbye Card

My work presented me with a giant goodbye card today. It's funny the things you remember about people.

Edge of Glory

Dancing around madly in my apartment to this. Toothbrush doubling up as a microphone. I fucking love it. I'M ON THE EDGE WITH YOU!

Mugs

So I am pulling myself off Facebook/LA Noire/Season 6 of Criminal Minds and a backlog of Mental Floss articles to come here and post this. Between the two of us, we spend a lot of time pulling funny faces at each other and on camera.

So if you ask where I've been working, going to interviews [sigh for the Gen Y in me], trying to get a life in this miserable weather and doing lots and lots of mugging for the camera.

Fools

"You might actually be born with the most beautiful features in the whole of the world, you might have the best intellect, you might have all of these wonderful qualities and characteristics but in make-over culture you won't be seen as perfect, you'll always be seen as someone that can be improved upon.. and I think that's the most detrimental part of make-over culture- it doesn't allow us to rest, we can never be perfect, we can never say to ourselves - I'm okay now. Once we do that, we're accused of letting ourselves go."

I don't know who this video was from but I guess it's something for you [and me] to chew upon. Should we not always be striving to better ourselves and if we don't, are we not just being complacent? But are these standards [and in particular societal beauty standards] too high? Are we reaching for something that doesn't exist and if so, does that make fools of us all?

Talking to children

[Reading out her childcare report card to me]
Mum: But she must always remember to speak to a child at their level. What does that mean?
Mush: That means you talk to the kid like an adult. You're supposed to talk to the kid like a kid.
Mum: Oh, do I?
Mush: Yeah, but don't worry -it's a very specifically Asian thing to do.
Mum: Huh. And you? How did I talk to you as a child?
Mush: Like an adult.

Actually now that I think about it, I do that a lot too- talking to toddlers and babies about definitions and concepts. You will never find me in front of a pram cooing 'it's a teddy-weddy-weddy-bear!' Maybe it's genetic.

Just smoke the damn cigarette already

And so lately everyone has been pointing out vanilla I am. And you don't have to really know me that well to know just how much I hate this. Just because I'm not snorting things up my damn nose every night and sleeping with Tom, Dick and Harry at the same time doesn't mean you should put me in this damn goody-goody box. I resent this damn box.

RR: something something drugs.
Mush: Oh that's not how it is.
RR: How would you know? As if you've ever taken drugs.
Mush: ........
RR: Look at you in all your vanillaness.
Mush: [glaring at her from my stupid nerdy glasses] Oh yeah? And how can you tell?
RR: [exasperated] You're a good girl. You just are. You never would.
Mush: I am not a good girl! (if I punch you in the head I think you would stop calling me that)
RR: There's nothing wrong with being good you know? It's okay.

RR really knows how to push my damn buttons. And of course she's right- recently I'm going out of my way to be reasonable and sensible. I'm sleeping at ten. I'm not showing up late for anything. I'm not drinking.. at all, I've turned into some sort of ghastly teetotaller. I don't throw Veruca Salt like tantrums. I mean for Og's sake- my hair is a nice nominal black colour and not the candy floss pink that I originally wanted - in short it's like I've been dialled back to minus five.

Which must be nice for my parents. I'm not so sure how I feel about this.

And that might go a long way to explaining why I'm constantly craving cigarettes lately. I want to pick them up and twirl them in my fingers, I want to take a damn cigarette break in front of my work and not give a shit what anybody walking past thinks, I want to smell them on my hands when I lift them to my face and most of all I want to inhale. The hilarious thing is I don't smoke, not really. I am well aware that this is my self-destructive streak rising to the surface like a kraken heading for the buffet.

I guess if chaining out my window is the most rebellious thing I do in the next few months, I truly am vanilla- I'll give up and own that title.

Stop for a moment

My eyes are so wide like you reached into my head and turned on a light inside- Be Mine, David Gray.

I'm standing here on the street corner, four blocks away from my house. And I can't explain the stillness, I don't have the writing capacity to explain stillness. My feet hurt and I'm tired but that's ok. Because the world is so quiet that all I can hear is the gentle tapping on my keypad and my own footsteps in the leaves and I think that if this is as good as it gets, for five minutes, for ten, for fifteen, then that should be all I ever ask for. Momentary stillness.

Priorities, priorities.

Well see here's proof that I'm alive and eating cake. Cake with dessicated coconut so maybe not so much alive.

I guess I'll return when I have something concrete to say. At this point I feel like if I analyse my life, I'm going to find a gap and poke a hole right through it. I am that superstitious. Or maybe I'm just too old to care about everything and everyone all the time. Right now, I'm focusing quite a bit of energy on one person and I'm finding it reallly damn hard to spread myself around when [certain] friends have mental crises. And you know? that's strange to say even for me, if you call for me I'm the first one out the door for you- no questions asked and lately I have a hard time picking up the phone or even just summoning the energy to roll out of bed. [In fact, my bed is eyeing me now but so are my sink of dishes. The dishes win.]

I'm not twenty one anymore and nowhere is this more evident than my inability to give people equal time. As Coconat so eloquently put it "We're too old for this shit. And we're too old to deal with crap that's really not that important."

And so it is. I was talking to my mum about ND and she as always shoots straight from the hip.
Mum: SB once said to me that you always put your friends before him.
Me: He said that to you? Why the fk would he say that to you? When the hell? What the heck!
Mum: Are you still doing that? Maybe you should reconsider doing that.
Me: [defensive] well it's true. I don't admit that it's not true. I knew it, he knew it. It was the way things were done. Friends are forever and boyfriends are.. transient. Case in point. I'd just like to point out that if I leaned on him hard, where would I be? I'd be Wiley Coyote'd all over the ground.
Mum: Aren't you tired? Don't you just want to lean and be taken care of? Would it not make your life easier?
Me: You brought me up to be completely self-sufficient and independent. What are you asking of me?
Mum: Maybe too much for your own good.

I don't know where I'm going with this, I think I'm just in a roundabout way trying to say that my priorities are getting a total reconfiguration and I'm still in the process of trying to figure it out myself. Which is not really the reason I'm neglecting the holy moly out of this blog.

I swear I'll be good and offer you more cake pictures. Amateur cake photographs. There'll at least be a lot of those coming up

Try thinking before you speak

Betty asked for more posting, so hi Betty! *waves*

--

I was absorbed in creating a mixtape on the computer and he was sitting behind me just watching me mess around, when I noticed the time was getting close to midnight so not moving my eyes away from the screen, I felt around for his face and said absently:

You know I love you but you have to go soon.

Uhm. It took me about several beats to realise what I just said and then the room went completely silent in a death pall. Who the hell makes random love declarations two weeks in while multi-tasking? Me apparently. Oh I fail sometimes, I really do.

I swivelled around in horror and almost knocked him off the seat in the process.

"I.. uhhhh. OH MY GOD. I didn't mean that. I mean I like you a lot but that's not what I meant. I was distracted. I say that to everyone. I tell everyone I love them, it's not personal. I don't know why I said that. ..... uhhhhhhhhhh....." [smooth Mush smooth! You missed out on an incredible public relations career!] By this time I'm quite sure my face is fire engine red.

He starts to laugh, he's finding it hilarious. "Should I just pretend I didn't hear that?"

Dumbdumbdumbdumbdumb! Argh! Stupid mixtape! "But it's true. I say I love everyone." This is sounding lame even to my ears, but it's TRUE. "Forget it! It didn't happen!."

I don't even know if there's a moral to this other than: Dear God, I need to relearn when to start and stop talking.

At least I'm still making an effort to write something.

There once was this blogger who used to WRITE give or take three times a week.. and then one day she just ran out of things to talk about. Completely flat. What the heck happened? She was probably too busy posing in front of mirrors. Probably. I'm not trying to show off my new jacket or anything.

Jumping off that cliff

So it turns out I actually had some sort of undiagnosed tuberculosis and then I lost my voice completely. Not so good for me, possibly good for everyone else.

--

I've been thinking a bit about whether I should talk about this- because possibly too early, too soon and probably I have a feelling I'm not going to portray myself too well in this post- so avert your eyes.

So there's this new person in my life, we'll call him ND and because I [am/was?] on a sabbatical, I was extremely reticent about going out with him.. well he doesn't know that. It really isn't you, it's me!

And so in hindsight, I started making excuses to myself and to my friends about why I shouldn't do this.

a) Firstly, he's not my ordinary type and when I say not my type- I don't know if you've noticed but since I quit with SB, my type has been precocious party boys. I figure if you lined up Coffee, R6 and DS against a wall and measured liver function, there would not be a working liver among them. I apparently like my men on pre-destined dialysis drips.

b) I let a random stranger press my buttons. Who listens to random strangers? Me.

c) He's too good for me. And when I say too good for me, I don't mean as in he's punching below his weight, I mean as in [following on from the whole type thing] he's a good guy. He doesn't drink much, he doesn't smoke, the guy doesn't even drink coffee. And me? Have you met me? If you flicked holy water on me, I might explode into a pile of ashes. Where can a relationship go with such uneven levels? an exorcism?

You know how I always mention that I have really good friends and they're good because truly they never sugar coat anything and they're not afraid to bitchslap the holy crap out of me when they know I'm being a fuck up. So here is what Ms Smith said to all of that [paraphrasing]:

"What are you saying?! You're not going to date him because he's good. You won't take a chance on him because he's not a party boy. You would rather date someone who just goes out and messes around all weekend and doesn't call you when they're supposed to than someone who doesn't. Isn't he good and kind and nice? How is the whole dating party boys thing working out for you anyway? "

"......Fantastically."

The thing is that you may think someone is good and kind and nice and then they may turn around and throw you under a bus anyway. I honestly think that I'm really not emotionally prepared enough to go for another round of relationship roadkill. But that whole conversation really made me stop and think about what the heck I'm doing. How I'm letting my commitmentphobia run the show, how I might be letting go of someone genuinely good because I don't want to dump my hand in the water and so what if this one throws me under too? What can possibly be the worst that can happen? I'll be here in three months time feeling mopey and stupid and blogging about it but I'll get over it. Eventually. I really suck at getting over things as we all know.

So we're dating. I really like him and we talk about obscure history and he really makes me laugh, so here's to closing my eyes and jumping off that cliff. I am ridiculously petrified.

It was only just a dream.

[Yeah yeah I just gave one of the least deserving artists in the world a shoutout.]

Errr.. I'm just going to talk about this dream that I had this morning, it really bothered me and I'm going to start navel gazing about it [but I'm going to cover the names again so that my friends don't start hammering me about my demented subconscious tomorrow if they get past the 2nd paragraph.] so feel free to tune out in 5, 4, 3, 2....

--

So I wake up in the dream [yeah I woke up in the dream- how fricking weird is that? It's a bit backwards] and I'm discombobulated, I'm in a bed in my aunty's house and ☼ is standing over at the end of the bed and he's smiling. I think he says "Wakey wakey."
I'm confused and I look at him, "What are you doing here?"
He laughs and says "Why wouldn't I be here, we're in a relationship!"
And now I'm completely baffled, "uhhhh.... we are?" (no-one's told me that! What the hell!)
He smiles again, "Sure." and then he crosses the room, leans over the bed and kisses me. On the mouth. It's one helluva kiss and when he finishes up.. ummm.. okay I'm convinced! That works for me!
But maybe I should get out of bed yeah? So I swing out of bed and my foot kicks this make-up palette, I pick it up and open it and it crumbles everywhere. I have make-up all over my hands and I've made a mess. I put the palette back on the floor and when I look up he's gone. I figure ☼ went off to another part of the house, I have no idea.

I would look for him but I'm distracted by noise coming from the window. I walk to the window and I can see that the house next door is having a party and ◙ is standing right in my view. I'm not sure if he can see me looking but the next thing I know, his girlfriend runs up to him in this ridiculously beautiful blue dress, wraps her arms around his neck and gives him a hug. And the dress. It's cornflower blue with ruffle straps, a fitted bodice and a flared skirt and she's not beautiful but the dress makes her beautiful if you know what I mean.

He leans down to kiss her and as he does, he opens his eyes and looks at me. He knew I was there the entire time and he still did it. The intent and malice of it takes my breath away and I'm upset, I'm hurt, I'm jealous and most absurdly of all I covet her dress.

I run out of the house barefoot [the make-up is still on my hands] and I make my way to the nearest comic book store where I hide behind the counter and try to bury myself in comic books.

--
You don't really need a psychoanalyst with a specialisation in ridiculously obvious metaphors to see where my head's at.

All downhill from here

She said on the phone, "I was thinking this morning- have we reached a pinnacle where we're so disillusioned that we're not even impressed with nice guys and goodness anymore."
I think she might be right.

I just wanted to show off my glasses. And the view. And talk about the song.

"And if you feel just like a tourist in the city you were born/
Then it's time to go/
And to find your destination/
There's so many different places to call home

Sometimes the best intentions are in need of redemption/
Would you agree?"
-You are a Tourist- Death Cab for Cutie

Seriously Ben Gibbard speaks to me in a way no other songwriter can. Loving this to death.

Take one feminist and stir. Stir damn well.

and so I had a huge fight with my parents this week and I was very much snuffly and upset when I answered the phone.

Fark, I know she has the best intentions and loves me very much but sometimes I look at her and wonder how we stay friends if we truly don't understand each other.

Me: *snuffle snuffle*
Her: I know you don't listen but listen to this. I think you're much happier when you're with someone.
Me: Say what now? I don't know if you're advocating what I think you're advocating.
Her: Just find someone and be happy
Me: ..............................................................................................

There. That. We're from different planets. Look I get where's she coming from. Having a partner would make life easier. I'd be doing less heavy lifting for one. Money would be free-er. And my parents would be less worried that they're going to leave me alone on the planet. But I chose to walk away from all that. I very methodically walked away from marriage and a walk-in closet (I still dream of walk-in closets) knowing that none of it was going to be easy and truly if you've been following this blog even somewhat, you'd know that breakup was and will always be one of the defining moments of my life.

And I guess as my friend or even as a damn random acquaintance, you'd know just how highly I prize my independence. I don't need a partner to be happy. If they come by and ake me happy then bonus! But I won't place my happiness on their shoulders. Some people are just not happy unless they are in a relationship and that's fine, she's clearly one of those people.

And we've come around full circle because truly I don't know why she said it when it really has nothing to do with the fight I had with my parents!

The Neighbourhood Bulletin

Amended (With photos!)
I swore I wasn't going to come on the internet tonight because I'm just a tiny bit feeling like I have tuberculosis, but do you see this?




That's an entirely full bulletin board full of passive-aggressive notes [from four different neighbours!] about dog poop. I am going to go take a better picture later on because I didn't want to hang around too long and have people think that I'm a dog-hater.

But as I was readng it in fascination, some [fairly okay looking!] guy poppped up behind me and said "Oh haha. Haven't you seen that?"
And I was "No! This is crazy! That's so funny! Don't mind me I'm just going to take a picture to document. (click) Are you new here? I haven't seen you around"
"I've been here for two years, my name is Alex."
"I'm Mush and I live upstairs. I've been here two years as well."
"The people in this building are always complaining! Last week it was something about books."
"Oh. Really. Odd."**
He turns to leave and says "It's nice to meet you Mush!" then he winks at me and gestures towards the board, "Don't get involved."

Okay well he's pretty nice and the neighbour that calls me Tiger is pretty nice, but the rest of them and I'll repeat for the record. Again. My neighbours are fucking crazy. I'm starting to think that the building is built on some sort of Indian burial ground, it's cursed and it's all going to drive us eventually all mad. I would not be that surprised.

**I wasn't complaining. I thought it was a valid question!